William Chambers (architect) - Main Works

Main Works

• Roehampton Villa (largely extant including interior ceilings), now called Parkstead House, for William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough. Also designed two garden temples (one to be re-erected by 2008), similar to those at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
• Within Kew Gardens, some of his buildings are lost, those remaining being the ten-storey Pagoda, the Orangery, the Ruined Arch, the Temple of Bellona and the Temple of Aeolus.
• The Pagoda, in Pagoda Gardens, Blackheath, London is attributed to Chambers. A three-storey house built as a pavilion (c. 1775) for the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, it features a gabled Chinese-style roof with dramatic upturned corners. Caroline of Brunswick lived here after her separation from her husband, the Prince Regent, in 1799.
• Somerset House in London, his most famous building, which absorbed most of his energies over a period of two decades (1776–1796)
• The gilded state coach that is still used at coronations.
• Hedsor House, Buckinghamshire, the seat of Lord Boston, equerry to George III.
• For James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, he designed Charlemont House and the Casino at Marino, as well as the Chapel and Theatre in Trinity College, Dublin.
• He is also associated with Gothic additions to Milton Abbey in Dorset and the planning of the nearby rural village of Milton Abbas, sometimes considered the first planned settlement in England. This work was carried out in collaboration with landscape gardener Capability Brown in 1780 for Joseph Damer, the Earl of Dorchester, who wanted to relocate the existing village further away from his home at the Abbey.
• The Wick House, commissioned in 1772 by painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.